The Globalization of Education in North America: A Discussion of Immigration, Identity, and Imagination

North America is both geographically large and demographically diverse, which makes a discussion about globalization in North America difficult to distinguish from globalization writ large. This chapter attempts to do so nonetheless by examining tangible, virtual, and envisioned versions of the globalization of education in North America specific to trends in immigration (and migration), identity, and imagination. A brief explanation of theories of globalization that intersect in the North American context includes world systems, neo-institutionalism, cosmopolitanism, neoliberalism, and post-colonialism, but could include many more. This chapter also suggests that the globalization of education in North America is not limited to the continent of North America due to the many external or global educational entanglements that North Americans have with other countries and regions worldwide.